RITonight. Get it? Get it? Puck drops on Michigan's season opener in a couple hours. Yost Built has a preview and a wrapup season preview post. A few comments on Michigan exhibition against Windsor:

Trouba is the truth. Three assists, one leveling open-ice hit, and defensive responsibility until everyone got sloppy up a ton in the third. A tape to tape breakout pass machine. Money money money.

Andrew Copp is an interesting guy to keep an eye on. Not a big recruit by any stretch of the imagination but Copp stood out as a big dude with some jump; he split time between football and hockey in high school and may develop into something a bit better than Danny Fardig 2.0.

Moffatt-Treais-PDG looks to be your top line, at least for now, with the wingers on that line seeming to have good chemistry. Looking for a bustout year from PDG, who was young enough to get drafted after his freshman year and should improve greatly.

Brennan Serville is another guy I'll be watching early for signs of improvement, especially with Merrill out six weeks and Serville skating every night as a result. Initial impression was not much different than last year's struggles, unfortunately, but confirmation bias and all that.

I miss Hunwick. Rutledge gave up a soft goal in his period and looked like he had holes all over. This may be paranoia.

The mid-tier guys (Moffie, Bennett, Guptill, Old Lynch, Hyman) were scratched, FWIW. Hyman's another guy I'm hoping will start producing more after his freshman hype fizzled.

"He was the first guy I saw. He just looked at me and smiled, 'Man, I can't believe you did it.' We had a little dreadlock bond, I guess. Now I'm trying to persuade him to cut 'em"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

but it's not going to happen. Not going to happen."

Nevermind.

Ticket pricing update. To be fair The M Zone needs to continue their scalping project into next year to see what it's like trying to grab OSU tickets online, but so far so good for the idea we're closing in on the max amount people will pay to go to Michigan games:

MSU is looking like a win for season ticket holders but that's the only one, and that's with Stubhub's massive cut (15% from the seller plus 20 bucks in "convenience fees" from the buyer) taken into account.

"A lot of people like to listen to little kids, and you should speak up and make a difference," said Genna, a Brighton third-grader.

She addressed the university's board of regents in March and lobbied state legislators in June to name a special day after star U-M football player Willis Ward, who was benched for a game against Georgia Tech in 1934 because he was black.

Genna succeeded, and Willis — a friend and teammate of future President Gerald Ford — will be honored by the state and school next week.

Like flies. Blocking-type Michigan State people continue to get injured at an alarming rate. TE Dion Sims may or may not play against Michigan; if he doesn't they probably won't be throwing his backup many passes:

Andrew Gleichert, a walk-on who was awarded a scholarship before the opener against Boise State, has a broken wrist and will have to play with a cast the rest of the season.

"We got concerned with him being a point-of-attack blocker," Roushar said. "We feel like he's got to do a better job. He's working on it. With the loss of Dion, you're looking for something stronger at the point of attack."

Meanwhile, former megarecruit Lawrence Thomas went from linebacker to 295-pound fullback and can't move down to tight end this week because he picked up a concussion against Indiana—his second since August. He's expected to play against Iowa because obviously.

The 2012 Football Media Guide was released last night. Like all media guides it has lots of information reporters will Google/Bentley anyway if they ever need it. This one also comes with an extensive section on 100-yard rushers and 100-yard rushing duos in case, you know, anyone needs to write an article this year about two guys rushing for over 100 yards in a game or something. It also has a roster. A ROSTER!!! OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD OMIGOD, OBSESSIVE ATTENTION TO ROSTER NUMBERS, GO!

Notable non-bullets:

NO position switches: Everybody who was a thing in spring is still that thing.

Baquer Sayed not on it again. This same thing happened last year and then he turned up back on the team so this could be nothing. (UPDATE: Confirmed he has left the team.) Baquer was in the Spring Game and caught one of those passes listed as "unknown" in the box score. He was a 2010 preferred walk-on, one of those tall, loping-type receivers who look like they're hunched over until they extend to unworldly lengths. He turned down MAC offers to walk on here. Tim Sullivan interviewed him on MGo a few years ago. Yes, that Fordson.

Devin Gardner a junior, not RS soph. You shouldn't expect him to be since they won't say until he applies following the 2013 season, but I always look anyway.

WDEs the Biggest Gainers. Brennan Beyer is now 252 lbs., up 27 from the Spring roster, meaning he has gained the mass of the world's biggest lobster. Space fact: it now takes as much extra energy for Beyer to jump as it takes an astronaut in his space suit to jump from the surface of the moon. Frank Clark is up 32 lbs. for a listed 260. In other guys moving down the line, Jibreel Black is up to 276 (+16) and Roh is listed at 278 (+9).

Holy Ondre! Ondre Pipkins, at 337 pounds, is the biggest dude on the entire roster. For reference, Will Campbell arrived at 309, Richard Ash was 320, and freshman Gabe Watson was 358.* Other freshmen arriving much larger than advertised are Willie Henry (6'3-302, from 6'2-270), Ben Braden (6'6-319, from 285), Erik Magnuson (6'6-290 from 275), Amara Darboh (6'2-218 from 190), A.J. Williams (6'6-282 from 270), The Funchess (6'4-225 from 6'5-205), and James Ross (6'1-225 from 6'0-209). Only RJS arrived smaller than sites said (6'2-206 from 215).

# = preferred walk-on. Interesting note: Glasgow is listed at DL, though the little chatter about him on the interwebs expected him to be an interior offensive lineman.

Counting Things on Scholarship

(note: Brink, Heininger and Kovacs counted as scholarship players)

31! Thirty-one scholarship players with junior (19) or senior (12) eligibility, ah ah ah! Last year was 18 juniors and 15 seniors; 2010 was 14 and 11. This year there are only 11 sophomores (since few redshirted in '10 and many did last season.

7! Seven receivers on last year's August roster who are now gone. Odoms, Grady and Hemingway by graduation, Stonum by action, Stokes and Williamson by volition, Terrence Robinson by unrenewsion. AHHHH!

14! Fourteen scholarship players at defensive back, ah ah ah! As opposed to nine on the roster in 2009.

44! Forty-four of the guys pictured in the Media Guide with facial hair, ah ah ah! This has to be a new record since the '70s.

Team 133 Photo Day

THE THREE STAGES OF BEARDLINESS:

They are Demens, Allspach, and Mealer.

TEAM DREAD-FLOW 133!:

(EDIT: Almost forgot:

.)

They are Wolverines with lions' manes sticking out of their helmets, soaring through the air in much the same way Odre Pipkins doesn't. They are: J.T. Floyd, Chris Eddins, Gibbons U PUT IT THRU THE UPRITES, Denard with something on his upper lip that shouldn't be there, Roh's left eyebrow, Roh's right eyebrow, Hopkins, the Jake (love the Jake), and Bolden. Here's some dudes trying to get into the club:

CEASE PANIC ONCE MORE. See, I do learn: the most recent twitter panic was a report from Devin Gardner that Denard Robinson had cut off his dreads, and I refrained from having requesting mass panic. MGoUser Raback Omaba stakes his hard-earned Dorsey-commit rep on this report that takes us down from DEFCON 2:

Reports of him shorning them and sporting a "lil boosie fade" were premature. Denard merely trimmed his dreads and styled them differently. However he maintains his trademark Denard Robinson dreadlocks. He did not get a fade, his dreads are still there. Significant amounts of dilithium remains hanging from his head, perhaps more effective than before. Let's worry about football now rather than carry on about hairstyles of future Heisman winners. Move on. Denard still has dreads

He has a fade and dreads? The magic of Denard is ever-expanding.

RESUME PANIC. These aren't happening but the asked-for horrifying new jersey mockups have arrived and are terrible enough to cause you to run around screaming:

These will happen someday, probably when we're flying around in jet cars and pushing a button at our jobs. You know, when Denard Robinson doesn't seem fast.

Jihadexpansion update. Mary Sue Coleman talked to a bunch of alumni at a function in Boston recently that a couple of MGoUsers report back from. Some small amount of detail on the second-to-last event in the NCAA whatnot:

Pres. Coleman stated that UM will be announcing its self-imposed sanctions by the end of the month. She indicated that there was cross communication between the coaching staff and the compliance people. The coaching staff thought they'd been given the green light, whereas the compliance people thought that a different question was being asked. She said that unlike reported in some places, at best the overage amount would amount to roughly 2 hours a week. She also predicted that many football programs across the US will be dropping compliance people to avoid danger of giving "coaching advice."

A later post in the thread gives the 24th as the date on which Michigan will send back the report and announce whatever they're self-imposing. If it's in line with previous violations of this nature Michigan will have to give back the hour overages two-to-one and may have to forgo the use of a coach for some period of time. Assorted minor items will be tacked on; the guess here is that no scholarship penalties will result except possibly a single one this year that's more symbolic than anything—Michigan won't be able to get up past 84 this year anyway.

An old guarantee.MGoVideo gets in on the WH gig by providing a youtube embed of the 1986 edition of The Game featuring Jim Harbaugh's famous guarantee:

Stick around afterwards for a quarterback comparison that Harbaugh dominates on completion percentage not not looking like Sloth.

With seven goals in a seven-game series victory over the defending Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins, Cammalleri equaled a team record for tallies in a single playoff series shared by Maurice (Rocket) Richard (1944 and 1958), Jean Beliveau (1956), Bernard (Boom Boom) Geoffrion (1957), Guy Lafleur (1975) and Marcel Bonin (1959)�all of them but Bonin long established members of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

After a scary injury last year that saw Bree Evans lie motionless on the ground after a home-plate collision in an exhibition game against State, she's returned to the field hale, hearty, and hitting. She's now batting .365 as a sophomore, second-best on the team. The official site has deployed its feature machine in response:

The softball team is now 44-6, 16-1 in the conference, and is cruising towards another top seed in the NCAA tournament. This weekend's regular season finale at Iowa will be televised live by the BTN at 6 on Friday and 4 on Saturday.